Gallery: A Morning with the Donut Robot at 606 R&D in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn

Fresh out of the machine

The doughnuts—tender inside, crisp outside, and not too sweet—are three for four dollars.

Donut Robot

This is the automatic doughnut-making machine which 606 R&D's owners purchased with Kickstarter campaign funds. The machine dispenses a ring of batter into hot oil, flips the doughnut, then turns it out onto a sheet pan.

Loading the Batter

A cook loads the batter, which is prepared in-house with Dreesen's doughnut mix, into the Donut Robot.

Dispensing the batter

The Donut Robot self-dispenses rings of batter into hot oil below.

Onto the sheet pan

After being fried on one side, flipped, then fried on the other, the new doughnut travels up the machine's conveyor belt.

Onto the sheet pan

It's flipped right onto a prepared sheet pan below.

Multiplying doughnuts

As the Donut Robot cranks 'em out, the sheet pans fill up with fresh, hot doughnuts.

Ready to eat

The doughnuts are either rolled in powdered sugar or cinnamon-sugar, or left plain. "The plain has been the sleeper hit," Rosen noted.